barron's coordinate geometry

[Fahad Ali]

Barron's corordinate geometry section doesn't cover the slope-intercept form and the mid point of a line. Does that mean that these two formulas are not part of GRE?


Regards,

[pemdas]

no, it only means that barron's did poorly on test prep stuff

you have to know slope and intercept relationship like the back of your hand, otherwise questions with difficulty levels 4 (hard) and 5 (very hard) will take all your quant section time

Barron's corordinate geometry section doesn't cover the slope-intercept form and the mid point of a line. Does that mean that these two formulas are not part of GRE?


Regards,

[Chris Knight]

Just for a reference. The midpoint of a line with respect to (x,y) is (average of x-values, average of y-values)

Slope is (y2 - y1)/(x2 - x1)

and the equation for a line is y = mx + b, where m is the slope and b is the y-intercept.

[Fahad Ali]

Thank you pemdas. Can you tell me that which book is the best for quant. Also is there a book or any other source which categorize practice GRE questions by level of difficulty (once i saw such book for GMAT).
Secondly, is the barron's verbal workbook good or not? I must tell you that I have given GRE before and scored 90th percentile in verbal. So is it good enough to improve for me.

Regards,

[Fahad Ali]

I just got the official guide for revised GRE and the coordinate geometry portion is a killer in this book. I mean the slope intercept form and mid point formula is OK but graph of quadratic equation, line of symmetry, and graphs of function sounds an overkill; doesn't it???

[pemdas]

I just got the official guide for revised GRE and the coordinate geometry portion is a killer in this book. I mean the slope intercept form and mid point formula is OK but graph of quadratic equation, line of symmetry, and graphs of function sounds an overkill; doesn't it???

u sound rusty in math
spend 1-2 hours studying functions from CAT books and review coordinate geo of ETS guide again
it's all about function; the only things you need to know are 4 quadrants, slope/angle relationships for linear functions, symmetry for quadratics and exponential functions. That should suffice for planimetric view. Others are stereometry won't be tested on GRE - we are lucky, aren't we?

[Fahad Ali]

u sound rusty in math
spend 1-2 hours studying functions from CAT books and review coordinate geo of ETS guide again
it's all about function; the only things you need to know are 4 quadrants, slope/angle relationships for linear functions, symmetry for quadratics and exponential functions. That should suffice for planimetric view. Others are stereometry won't be tested on GRE - we are lucky, aren't we?

you're right. i haven't done math after 10th grade.

[mxplusb]

It is amazing how quickly math knowledge can fade, if you didn't really drill it in when you first learned it. I would recommend spending a LOT of time on practice problems. The more you practice, the more it will be automatic on the test and the less time you will spend second-guessing yourself.

Personally -- and your mileage may vary -- I almost never "study" formulas or attempt to memorize them. I do problems. I believe that if you do a lot of problems, with the formulas written down somewhere you can check them easily, you will probably not have to deliberately memorize them. Instead you will automatically learn the formulas by heart just from using them so much. At any rate, I've gotten A's in quite a lot of math classes with that approach.